Calm and friendly Our peafowl are friendly and calm birds without any tendency to panic or to become aggressive. Their balanced temperament does not stop them from very quick reactions if they are exposed to something they find frightening. Their first instinct is to fly, and they do so by calmly but decidedly trotting away, running away or, if they judge the danger to be very serious, to instantly fly away, usually up in a tree or up on a roof. They are fairly good flyers, compared to common hens, and can, without problem, lift as high as 10-15 meters above the ground, even if they are incapable to flying any further distances on this height. They can scream and make a terrible noice while flying up i these situations. However, they do soon calm down again, but usually they stay sitting on their branch, or roof, for a considerable time, half an hour or more, after such a flying tour. We suspect that they use so much energy in flying up like this, that they need time to recover. Usually they are on the ground again in less than an hour though. We do not have any scientific data to support our assumption about this though. Otherwise they fly higher up only to rest, which they do in the middle of the day and during nights. During the winter our peafowl sleep 4 meters above the floor in our barn, on the thick stocks under the ceiling, during summer at about the same height but in a tree outdoors. Also the chicks are good flyers. This year our hen laid her eggs on a shelf just under the ceiling in the barn. We were very worried because we were convinced that the newborn chicks would become blood spots on the floor when they tried to follow the hen down to the floor. We therefore decided to catch them soon after they hade been hatched and take them down to the floor. But of course, suddenly one day the hen simply walked around on the floor with four newly hatched chickens following her. Their first and very early fly-experience had done them no harm. We believe that they came down within a day after their hatching. These birds then, have an incredible wing power already at their first day of life and the adult birds can hit hard with their wings if they prefer to defend themselves instead of escaping. Our pea fowl immediately taught our cats not to view them as giant steaks, by giving the cats some really hard hitting lashes with their wings.

Also our dogs prefer not to chase or attack the pea fowl. In spite of this, the pea fowl are not aggressive, like for example turkey cocks or male geese can be, also towards humans. But if they need to defend themselves against smaller predators they do so, and do it very well. How do the Peafowl manage to avoid becoming a fox-dinner? In fact, an adult peahen or peacock is not easily caught by a fox. First, peafowl are very alert and observant, and second, they react rapidly and fly away if they are attacked. So, in order for a fox to be able to catch them, it must be lucky. Small chicks though, are easy victims, not only for foxes but also for big predatory birds, such as crows and magpies. We believe that last year's chicks were all killed by magpies. They simply disappeared in two days after hatching. Probably because they could get out of the barn under the walls, where the hen could not follow them and defend them. So, this year we saw to that this possibility for the chicks to get away from their mother's care and protection was omitted, and all four survived this summer. It is important then, to see to that the chicks can not get out alone, without their mother having a chance to follow them. The best way, of course, is to keep both mother and chicks in a big cage, the first weeks after hatching. To top

Not easy to tame Our peafowl have not been easy to tame but that can be due to their early life experiences. The cock of course, was scared nearly to death when I tried to, and finally managed to catch him to bring him with me. I guess that the young ones are easier to tame, as usually is the case with all animals. Probably also the older ones could be tamed with a lot of patience. I tried to get the cock to eat from my hands at the beginning, when he was alone and locked up in the barn, but I did not manage. He came as close to my hand as 20 cm, but he steadily refused to take a tid bit directly from my hand. I may have managed had I tried long enough though. Outdoors we sometimes feed them pieces of bread or pasta, by throwing it to them on the ground. They always come over to us as soon as they believe that we have something for them to eat, or when we demonstrate that we have, but they stay a few meters away from us. To top

In these situations, I have noticed that the peacock is not at all as polite and generous as a common cock can be. The latter often offers his hens the food that he has found, while the peacock usually tries to scare also the hen away from the pieces we throw to them. But we have never seen our peacocks involved in any real fights. We do not, however, have had them for such a long time that we have been able to observe how adult pea cocks behave towards one another.

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